In VB.NET, how can I convert the following string into some kind of key/value type such as a Hashtable, Dictionary, etc?
"Name=Fred;Birthday=19-June-1906;ID=12345"
I want to extract Birthday or ID without having to split the string into an array.
EDIT: I'd prefer not to split the string into an array in case the format of the string changes later. I don't have control over the string. What if someone switches the order around or adds another element?
Not sure why you don't want to split it. If you're sure there won't be any extra = or ; then you could just do:
Dim s As String = "Name=Fred;Birthday=19-June-1906;ID=12345"
Dim d As New Dictionary(Of String, String)
For Each temp As String In s.Split(";"c)
Dim index As Int32 = temp.IndexOf("="c)
d.Add(temp.Substring(0, index), temp.Substring(index + 1))
Next
Which might not be beautiful, but is very easy to understand.
input.Split(";"c) returns an array of key/value:
{ "Name=Fred", "Birthday=19-June-1906" , "ID=12345" }
so pair.Split("="c) returns { "Name", "Fred" } etc
Dim persSeparator as string=";"
Dim keyValSeparator as string="=";
Dim allPersons As New Dictionary(Of String, Person)
Dim str As String = "Name=Fred;Birthday=19-June-1906;ID=12345"
Dim parts As New List(Of String)(str.Split(persSeparator.ToCharArray)) 'why dont want you to split this string??
Dim person As New Person
For Each part As String In parts
Dim keyValue() As String = part.Split(keyValSeparator.toCharArray())
Select Case keyValue(0).ToUpper
Case "ID"
person.ID = keyValue(1)
Case "NAME"
person.Name = keyValue(1)
Case "BIRTHDAY"
person.BirthDay= keyValue(1)
End Select
Next
If Not allPersons.ContainsKey(person.ID) Then
allPersons.Add(person.ID, person)
End If
Public Class Person
Private _name As String
Private _birthday As String
Private _id As String = String.Empty
Public Sub New()
End Sub
Public Sub New(ByVal id As String)
Me._id = id
End Sub
Public Sub New(ByVal id As String, ByVal name As String)
Me._id = id
Me._name = name
End Sub
Public Sub New(ByVal id As String, ByVal name As String, ByVal birthday As String)
Me._id = id
Me._name = name
Me._birthday = birthday
End Sub
Public Property ID() As String
Get
Return Me._id
End Get
Set(ByVal value As String)
Me._id = value
End Set
End Property
Public Property Name() As String
Get
Return Me._name
End Get
Set(ByVal value As String)
Me._name = value
End Set
End Property
Public Property BirthDay() As String
Get
Return Me._birthday
End Get
Set(ByVal value As String)
Me._birthday = value
End Set
End Property
Public Overrides Function Equals(ByVal obj As Object) As Boolean
If TypeOf obj Is Person AndAlso Not obj Is Nothing Then
Return String.Compare(Me._id, DirectCast(obj, Person).ID) = 0
Else : Return False
End If
End Function
End Class
If you were just wanting to extract the birthday and ID from the string and place as a value pair in some sort of dictionary, for simplicity I would use regular expressions and then a generic dictionary (of string, valuepair structure). Something like this:
Imports System.Text.RegularExpressions
Imports System.Collections.Generic
Sub Main()
Dim Person As New Dictionary(Of String, ValuePair)
Dim s As String = "Name=Fred;Birthday=19-June-1906;ID=12"
Dim r As Regex = New Regex("Name=(.*);Birthday=(.*);ID=(.*$)")
Dim m As Match = r.Match(s)
Person.Add(CStr(m.Groups(1).Value), _
New ValuePair(CDate(m.Groups(2).Value), CInt(m.Groups(3).Value)))
Console.WriteLine(Person("Fred").Birthday.ToString)
Console.WriteLine(Person("Fred").ID.ToString)
Console.Read()
End Sub
Friend Structure ValuePair
Private _birthday As Date
Private _ID As Int32
Public ReadOnly Property ID() As Int32
Get
Return _ID
End Get
End Property
Public ReadOnly Property Birthday() As Date
Get
Return _birthday
End Get
End Property
Sub New(ByVal Birthday As Date, ByVal ID As Int32)
_birthday = Birthday
_ID = ID
End Sub
End Structure
I’m currently unable to test this, lacking a VB compiler, but the following solution should also work, and it has the advantage of not requiring an explicit loop. It uses the Linq method ToDictionary and two nested Split operations:
Dim s = "Name=Fred;Birthday=19-June-1906;ID=12345"
Dim d = s.Split(";"c).Select(Function (kvp) kvp.Split("="c)) _
.ToDictionary( _
Function (kvp) kvp(0), _
Function (kvp) kvp(1))
First, we split on the outer delimiter (i.e. the semi-colon). From the resulting array, we select by splitting again, this time on =. The resulting array of arrays is converted to a dictionary by specifying that the first item is to become the key and the second is to become the value (the identifier kvp stands for “key-value pair”).
Since I can’t check the exact VB syntax and the above may contain subtle errors, here is the equivalent C# code (tested for correctness):
var s = "Name=Fred;Birthday=19-June-1906;ID=12345";
var d = s.Split(';').Select(kvp => kvp.Split('='))
.ToDictionary(kvp => kvp[0], kvp => kvp[1]);
If you want an alternative to doing a String.Split; there is always Regular Expressions as an alternative:
Dim map As Dictionary(Of String, String) = New Dictionary(Of String, String)
Dim match As Match = Regex.Match("Name=Fred;Birthday=19-June-1906;ID=12345", "(?<Name>[^=]*)=(?<Value>[^;]*);?")
While (match.Success)
map.Add(match.Groups("Name").Value, match.Groups("Value").Value)
match = match.NextMatch()
End While
The regular expression itself could be beefed up to better handle whitespace between key/value's and pair's but you hopefully get the idea. This should only pass through the string once to build up a string dictionary of keys and values.
To iterate over a dictionary, see http://w3vb.net/vb-net-data-structures/vb-net-collections/generic-dictionary/dictionary-containing-guid-and-date-as-keyvalue-in-vb-net